2024 Trends (6 Cultural Shifts Impacting Mental Health)

Global Fed-Up-Ness

I think it’s fair to say that we’re all pretty disgruntled and discontent with …well everything - jobs, prices, authorities, the state of affairs, life in general, etc. It probably started before the pandemic, but during and since the pandemic, it has absolutely skyrocketed. And this is the foundation of the world and our nation (U.S.). We actually have some overt data that highlights the desire for change, like the person who held the position/power in every single major developed country with an election in 2024 LOST¹. All of them. Every single one. No matter what they stood for. At the very least, this shows us that change is desired. But a change in what? Well, apparently any change. We’re just not happy, and we most definitely know it. We’re fed-up.

Polarization

Because of the unrest in the world, we are polarizing and splitting, which I think reflects the fear and hatred felt. We’re unfortunately attributing the goodness/badness of a person to what they believe instead of who they are. People are against people. But do you happen to remember a time when people were against the problem instead? I believe we’re feeling like we’re in danger, but the threat isn’t able to be seen, held, or maybe even defined. We’re running around with hypervigilance of ‘who is out to get me today?’ There’s no ONE person or group or power…but that means we can’t protect ourselves from something concrete. To handle this, we blame it on a group (i.e. political party, race, gender, generation) to feed the illusion of having control and power. It’s not helpful. It’s just playing into the danger and dividing the people. It’s heartbreaking.

Re-Examing Power Dynamics and Trauma

Polarization is leading to re-examination of power dynamics, including inequality and injustice, between groups. At the same time, or maybe even because of this, we’re discovering the underbelly of powerful groups and people - which isn’t pretty. This year, we’ve seen the Hollywood P Diddy² scandal. How can we even wrap our heads around the evil happening? We split and project. But we also seem to lean into helplessness and powerlessness - the victim mentality. See, we used to deny trauma and sweep it under the rug. Now, we’ve swung toward the opposite extreme, as we’re expanding our definition of trauma into anything that causes distress. It’s actually not helpful to do this because we start getting stuck and avoiding healing. Check out a study by Kleck and Strenta (1980)³ highlighting how we expect to be treated negatively if we’re different. And in 2022, Jones and McNally⁴ did a study that outlines the broader our beliefs of what trauma encompasses, the more vulnerable we might be to the negative effects of trauma.

Mental Health Crisis

We also have to understand that all this correlates with (or maybe even caused) the mental health crisis we’re facing (U.S.). Mental Health America⁵ reported that in the past year, 23.08% of adults experienced mental illness with 5.86% having severe mental illness and 5.04% having serious thoughts of suicide. We’re not okay, and the numbers are showing us that. But what do we do? The Manhattan Mental Health Counseling⁶ looked at Google trend searches for mental health disorders by state. Why does this matter? Because we’re turning to “Dr. Google” and “Dr. ChatGPT” (or even social media, which I rant about here⁷) for care instead of knowledgeable and ethical professionals. There’s actually a huge problem with people finding good care and small providers getting clients. Why? We now have venture capital companies.

Venture Capital Companies

Just like the healthcare industry’s turn toward for-profit has resulted in massive monopoly-like companies that seem to be for the $$ instead of the people (I’m refraining from going into the assassination of a big insurance company’s CEO⁸), we are starting to see big venture-capital companies create telehealth mega-corporations that are fueled by profit instead of a motivation of healing. These telehealth companies are funded by investors who have no idea about medical/psychological ethics and procedures. But don’t worry…they have money… (inserts sarcasm). Containing my rant about this, I’ll just state that we’re hurting small businesses and profiting off of people’s pain and needs. Not good, guys. Not good at all.

In 2024, we saw some disheartening trends. We’re in pain. We’re in a mental health crisis. We’re fed-up about it all and polarizing to cope. We’re re-examining constructs and power and privilege. And this coming year, in 2025, we need to get out of the victim mentality. We HAVE to start making changes that are ethical, empathetic, and beneficial to ALL people.

Are you going to be part of the change for good, or part of the problem?

References